Intermarriage versus Godly Homes

“But Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord.”

Genesis 6.8

In Genesis 6.7, God says that He was “sorry that He had made man”.  What a dreadful change since 1.31:

“Then God saw everything that He had made and it was very good.”

Chapter 6 portrays widespread sin, defying of God and serving self.  But one bright spot appears:  Noah found grace in the sight of the Lord.  What went so wrong?  In a word, “intermarriage”.  How did it become right again?  Grace.

Chapter 4 details the genealogy of the murderer, Cain, and a corresponding expansion and development of culture and commerce – a city (4.17), tending livestock (4.20), music (4.21) and metalworking (4.22).   Chapter 5 gives us the godly chronology of Adam and Eve’s third son, Seth, whose story reaches a zenith when Enoch is taken from earth without dying on account of his close and continual walk with God (5.24). 

The godly and ungodly coexisted in the fallen world until their intermarriage begins in 6.2 – a sin which was forbidden by God for his people in the Old Testament (Exodus 34.15-16) as well as for the Church in the New Testament (2 Cor 6.14).   And what were the tragic results of this widespread intermarriage of the godly and ungodly?  Wickedness was great, every thought of the heart was evil continually and God was sorry in His heart and grieved that He had made man (vv.5-6). 

In contrast, what a heritage it was for Enoch’s son, Methuselah, to share his father’s story with his family.   Methuselah lived until the year of the flood, possibly dying on the very day the flood began.  It was under this godly grandfather’s influence that Noah became God's man.

The solution for this world’s problems is not for God’s people to join the world but to stand apart from the world so that – as God’s people – they can make their mark on the world.  

Noah was a righteous man, blameless before his world (v. 9) and did all God command him to do (v. 22).  We who are saved by grace are saved for the purpose of living rightly before God and man, fulfilling God’s call on our lives.

For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast.  And we are His workmanship who have been created for good works, which God foreordained that we should do.  (Ephesians 2.8-10)

The intermarriage that concerns God has not to do with the color of one's skin but the condition of one's soul before God in Christ (Ephesians 2.14-19).  Sin multiplies in the world when those who follow Christ marry those who don’t – alliances overshadow faithful living.  The world’s hope does not come from a broader, more open mind that meets God's judgment but from those who have found grace in the sight of the Lord.  The world needs godly homes like the one in which Noah and Timothy were raised:

"..from a child you have known the holy scriptures through which you may be saved."  

2 Timothy 3.15